British defence contractor accused over hiring ex-child soldiers in Iraq

A major British private defence contractor may have recruited former child soldiers to work as security guards on American bases in Iraq, it has been alleged.

The claims against Aegis Defence Services are to be made in a Danish television documentaryThe Child Soldier’s New Jobwhich is due to be broadcast later on Monday.

The documentary claims that Aegis, which is chaired by Sir Nicholas Soames, the Tory MP and grandson of Winston Churchill, hired some 2,500 mercenaries on as little as £10 a day in order to fulfil contracts to guard US military bases from 2004 onwards.

James Ellery, a former director of Aegis Defence Services between 2005 and 2015, told The Guardian that the company had not checked if the African mercenaries – mostly from Sierra Leone – had previously been child soldiers, and justified the hiring decision on cost.

“You probably would have a better force if you recruited entirely from the Midlands of England,” Mr Ellery, a former British army officer, told the newspaper.

“But it can’t be afforded. So you go from the Midlands of England to Nepalese etc etc, Asians, and then at some point you say I’m afraid all we can afford now is Africans.”

Mr Ellery added that under law child soldiers could not be held responsible for crimes they had committed as children, and that after 18 had a right to seek work freely – which Aegis had no right to deny.

“We would have been completely in error if, having gone to Sierra Leone, we excluded those people,” he added.

Mads Ellesøe, the film's maker said he made the film because he wanted to make Western audiences “aware of the consequences of the privatisation of war”.

Graham Binns, senior managing director at GardaWorld, a Canadian company which took over Aegis last year, told the Guardian that his company had worked with carefully vetted and authorised local agents in Africa.

“Aegis takes issues pertinent to our industry, such as post-traumatic stress very seriously, and has worked closely with experts in the field to develop and implement procedures for the management of trauma risk,” he said.